Monday, Oct. 4


Watch RSS in Plain English by Common Craft



Create your start page/iGoogle page in your ISA Google account

Subscribe to RSS feeds for your wiki pages and the Ning
4 required wiki feeds: topic edits, topic discussion, group edits, group discussion
2 required Ning feeds: your profile page, latest activity on the Ning

Tuesday, Oct. 5



Vocab Quiz

social bookmarking, tags, taxonomy vs. folksonomy

Start Page

Check your iGoogle page for recent activity - communicate with your project partners
Take a screenshot of your iGoogle page with 6 required elements (4 wiki feeds, 2 ning feeds) and share it to Ms. Moorman in Google Docs

Wednesday, Oct. 6


Vocab Review

RSS and synchronous vs. asynchronous (with examples)

Start Page

Check your iGoogle page for recent activity - connect and communicate
If you see teammates online, you can use the Chat to communicate synchronously!

Communicate

Contribute to a discussion anywhere on the wiki or the Ning - or start a new one

FCP Ning

1. Join the FCP 10-3 Project Group on the Ning
2. Add the following RSS feeds to your iGoogle page
(use the "Add by URL" option if the Simple RSS Reader gadget isn't working)
  • ISA Group
  • FCP 10-3 Group
  • Blog Posts
  • Discussion Forum
  • Specific discussion(s) you are participating in

Thursday, Oct. 7


Vocab Review

RSS and synchronous vs. asynchronous (with examples)

Start Page

1. Add the Flat Classroom calendar to your ISA Google calendar and your iGoogle page
Paste this address in the "Add>Add by URL" box under "Other Calendars"
http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/tm8ucjki566pihf2pnc6e3t448%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
2. Check your iGoogle page for recent activity - connect and communicate

Linking Diigo and the Wiki

3. Embed the FCP Diigo Group's Linkroll for your topic's standard tag only at the bottom of your team's wiki page
  • FCP Group > Group widgets > Group Linkroll > type your standard tag in the box that says "Only These Tags" > click Retrieve
  • Copy the embed code
  • Edit your wiki page: click the Widget button, select "Other HTML," paste in the code, and save!

Research, Read, and Write

Your goal is to add at least 100 words to your team wiki page
You will be writing about your topic in terms of your assigned focus: Overview, Current News, Education, Government, Arts, or Science
Suggestion: browse the FCP Diigo Group for resources on your topic
Expectation: add notes, descriptions and additional tags to resources in the Diigo list after you've read them

Friday, Oct. 8

Mrs. Julie Magadance is your sub! Please be the kind and helpful students you always are :)

Vocab Quiz

RSS and synchronous vs. asynchronous (with examples)

Important First Step

Help everyone get caught up on the task we did together yesterday:
  • Hamed, quickly show Chris P how to sign in to Diigo using his school username and password - he needs to use that account because it's the one where he's a member of the FCP group
  • Group 1: Chris G, Narda, Kevin and Liz - your Linkrolls look good, you just need to move the widget up into the correct place on your team wiki page and add the standard tag on the line above it - see Haley's page, she did it perfectly Once you have fixed your own page, please help someone in Group 2 complete this task
  • Group 2: Hamed, Keely, Chris P, and Tori - please follow the directions for step 3 from yesterday's "to do" list - someone from Group 1 will be coming to help you if you get stuck
  • Haley - you did yours perfectly! - you are now project manager for the completion of this step ;) Please support Group 1 as they help Group 2 and then check everyone's final results
  • Connor - I think you told me you were going to be absent on Friday - I fixed your Diigo widget for you :)

Everyone: Leave a friendly message in the discussion tab for your teammates saying what you've done - for example,
Hi everyone, looks like our wiki page is starting to come to life. Today I added an RSS feed from our FCP Diigo group for all the latest research items tagged "google" - check it out at the bottom of the page! Next, I plan to write about how Google impacts education using Google Apps for Education as an example. What else does everyone think we should be adding to our wiki page?
Of course, your message will be different and will be in your own voice, this is just to give you an idea of what I'm asking you to do. In fact, every time you add something to the wiki from now on, you need to leave a message in the discussion tab, so this is a new habit to start getting into.

Research, Read, and Write

  • Your goal is to add at least 50 words to your team wiki page by the end of class today
  • Look at what others have already written and see what you can add
  • You can add to any part of the page, but pay special attention to your assigned focus A-F: Overview, Current News, Education, Government, Arts, or Science
  • Be sure to keep track of your sources - I will show you how to cite them next week. Of course, you can probably figure it out yourself if you read the directions on the project help page
  • Remember not to leave the editing window open too long; type your content in wordpad or notepad and then Edit > Paste > Save as quickly as possible
  • Don't forget to add another note to the discussion tab explaining what you've done and asking for your teammates' feedback or suggesting next steps for the group
  • I'll try to be available in the Chat page on the Ning if you have questions for me during class - just remember I'm in a professional meeting, so I can only chat with you briefly - try to help each other work things out first and message me as a last resort

Have a great long weekend!
See you Tuesday.
Love, Ms. Moorman

Monday, Oct. 11 - Student Holiday


Tuesday, Oct. 12


What's with the Wiki?

Let's look at the bigger picture
Follow this link to the Wikipedia Detective scavenger hunt
Discuss how to use the history and discussion tabs on the FCP 10-3A wiki to manage and monitor your work with your team

References (Citing your sources)

Learn how to cite your sources using a ref tag on a wiki
Here's a link to the guidelines for Citing Sources on the Project Help Wiki
Here's a link to the Wikispaces instructions for Adding References to Your Wiki

Wednesday, Oct. 13 - PSAT/DC Forum


Thursday, Oct. 14

Mrs. Lorene Juarez is your sub! Please be the kind and helpful students you always are :)

Watch Web Search Strategies in Plain English



What did you learn?

If you paid close attention to the video, you should now know how to reduce your number of search results by:
  • adding search terms
  • searching for specific phrases
  • removing unwanted words

Learn the 3 Boolean Search Operators



Use Boolify to Learn How Boolean Logic Works in Google

1. Start by going to Boolify
2. Use the puzzle pieces to link your search terms using AND, OR, and NOT
3. Look below the puzzle board to see what your search would look like in Google
  • Notice how Boolify puts quotes around phrases for you
  • Notice that AND is represented by spaces between words (not in quotes)
  • Notice how Boolify changes NOT to a minus sign (-) right in front of the word (touching it, like this -word.to.eliminate)
  • Notice that you still need to use capital letters for OR when searching in Google
4. How low can you go? - see if you can create a search specific enough to get your results down to 50 or fewer

Check your understanding of Boolean Searches

Go to the Boolean Machine website
BEFORE you put your cursor over the words AND, OR, and NOT, predict how the Venn diagram will be filled in
See if you're right - Check with your neighbor if you don't understand why the answer is what it is

Practice and Add to Your Diigo "Basket"

1. Use Boolean Logic and phrase searches in Google to find additional resources on your topic and subtopic
  • For example, if I'm on team 7D, my topic is Google and Government, Politics, and Employment
  • So one query (aka search string) I could try would be: google government OR politics -google.com -.gov
2. Your task today is to add at least 10 really useful and specific resources on your topic to your Diigo library

As always . . .

Check your iGoogle page for recent activity on the wiki and the Ning
Respond to any communications you've received and add to the discussions

Work hard and help each other!
See you tomorrow,
Ms. Moorman

Friday, Oct. 15


Review Boolean Logic on Google

To tell Google NOT, use minus sign (-) right in front of the word
To tell Google OR, use capital OR
To tell Google AND, put a space between words - if the words aren't in quotation marks, you're indicating AND

Carousel Brainstorming

Collaborate to come up with more keywords for your search
Create a mind map of your research topic
Add to each other's mind maps to share new ideas for research directions

Smart Searching

Use what you've learned about Boolean search logic to find resources on your topic and add them to your Diigo library
Include descriptions and at least 3 tags: flatclassroomproject, topic standard tag, one more of your choice

More Google Tips

Instead of lots of ORs, you can also use a tilde (~) to search for synonyms (put the tilde right in front of the word, no space)
If you come across a term you don't know, you can look it up using define:wordyoudon'tknow